Gingerbread Latte

Cold days, warm buildings, snuggled up at home with a blanket surrounded by the sweet smell of cinnamon, ginger, cloves and Christmas trees. Yes, its that time of year again. The Christmas season has begun! With Christmas being my favourite time of year I thought I would try and blog at least 10 times in the lead up to Christmas as there are just to many recipes associated with Christmas to narrow them down!

What better way to start the Christmas season of than with a gingerbread latte. Carrying the sweet smells of ginger and cinnamon all in a warming mug of coffee; this is the perfect winter warmer for those cold short days. Personally gingerbread lattes are my all time favourite Starbucks drink so I thought why not try to recreate this at home. And voila that is exactly what I did.

 

I was shocked to find out just how simple it was to create this warming yummy drink. As essentially it only requires 3 simple ingredients; ginger, cinnamon and vanilla extract.

Gingerbread Latte:

*Disclaimer this recipe is not my own it has been adapted from sweethappylife.com*

Ingredients for syrup:

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ingredients for Gingerbread latte: (1 serving)

1/2 cup of milk

1/2 cup of coffee

3-4 tablespoons of gingerbread syrup

whipped cream

Ground cinnamon (to sprinkle on top)

Method:

1. Combine the water, sugar, cinnamon and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil whisking continuously. 2. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes stirring frequently, remover from the heat once the syrup has thickened.

 3. Remove from the heat add the vanilla extract and allow the syrup to cool before use. (Once left to cool the syrup can be stored for up to 2 months in a container in the fridge-shake well before using after the syrup has been refrigerated.)

4. Add the desired amount of syrup into a mug, pour in the milk and stir until combined. Heat the milk syrup until hot and pour back in the mug.

5. Pour the brewed coffee into the mug. 

6. Top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon. 

This gingerbread latte went down a treat and I can guarantee I will be drinking a lot of them this during this Christmas season

Mum: "This is better than the Starbucks gingerbread Latte."

Salted Caramel Double Chocolate Muffins

Salted caramel double chocolate muffins...jheeze that's a big name for muffins ay. But I promise you they do taste as good as they sound.

Salted Caramel is supposed to be 'fashionable' at the moment in the world of food right so I thought hay why not give it a whirl and adapt a regular chocolate muffin recipe to make it into a salted caramel double chocolate muffin recipe. Which in my opinion sounds ten times better anyway.

You can never have too much chocolate right? I have found that chopping the chocolate up into chunks tastes soooo much better than just buying chocolate buttons!

Salted Caramel Double Chocolate Muffins:
*Disclaimer: This is not my own recipe it has been adapted from the Hummingbird Bakeries chocolate muffins*

Ingredients:

200g Caster Sugar

130g Plain Flour

50g Cocoa Powder

2tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Salt

160ml Whole Milk

1tsp Vanilla Extract

170g Butter (Melted)

120g Dark Chocolate (Roughly Chopped)

4 bars of caramel chocolate (I used Cadbury bars)

Method:

1.Preheat the oven to 170C, 325F or gas mark 3.

2. Put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk until pale and well combined.

3.In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine the milk and vanilla extract.

4.Gradually beat these two mixtures together alternately into the egg mixture little by little. Beat until all the ingredients are well combined.

5. Stir in the melted butter with a wooden spoon until well incorporated then stir in the chopped dark chocolate.

6. Spoon the mixture till the muffin cases are half way full. Add 2-3 squares of caramel chocolate on top of each muffin. Then add a little more mixture on top till the caramel chocolate is just covered and place any leftover caramel chocolate on top of the muffins.

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes (it took mine more like 50 minutes) until the muffins bounce back when touched.

8. Sprinkle with the salt and leave to cool for a bit. These muffins are best enjoyed warm.

These muffins are so gooey and best enjoyed warm whilst the caramel and chocolate pieces are still melted and scrummy. However, you can heat them up if you don't eat them till after cooled and they will be just as scrummy.